Archive for the ‘Hunger Games’ category

Teaching a novel effectively is challenging, especially if you want your students to engage deeply with the themes the authors are presenting and discover how novels can connect to their lives and perhaps show them how to cope with life’s challenges. And, above that, we want students to experience the pleasures of reading. The units and discussion and activity guides were intentionally designed to do all of the above while allowing for choice for students and teachers.Another goal was to design the discussion and activity guides for independent study or for small groups, to help differentiate and to meet the needs of students. Here are the five novels that are popular with students and teachers.

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. Carl Sandburg

The response to help a colleague may very well be connected to time: There’s barely enough time for the things I have to do—there’s just no time to be collegial. The scarcity of time is often a systemic problem, however, some teachers seem to find that time because they know that the return is energizing. Ben Johnson’s fourth step in avoiding teacher burnout in his article, 10 Ways to Avoid Teacher Burnout, is to help another teacher. He shares some excellent ways to do just that by responding to a blog or starting your own blog; mentoring another teacher; or taking an active role in your professional organization. Here’s 7 more ways to help a colleague:

Share a lesson, unit, or resources for a topic with teachers who teach the same grade level or content area.

Organize a grade level meeting or content area meeting to plan an end of the semester/year activity and ask everyone to bring an activity or resource to the meeting to share.

Share a journal article with a summary of the article and some practical applications attached to the article.

Designate a bulletin board or bookshelf in the teachers’ lounge for teachers to share resources, activities, books, lessons, etc.

Follow a blog (see suggestions under Resources).

Join your professional organization and share the resources from your membership.

Check in with a first-year teacher in your building. The conversation will benefit both of you.

While demands on time don’t always allow for teachers to collaborate with colleagues, when you do collaborate, the effort and end result is always worth it. My partners in Surviving to Thriving LjL have collaborated together on many projects—books, curricular materials, presentations, and workshops. For example, we are currently working on a unit and discussion/activity guide for Animal Farm. Jennifer just finished the unit. Next, I go through the unit, editing, deleting, adding, and then sending it back to Jennifer. She makes her adjustments, then it goes to Linda, who formats it expertly and uploads it to Teachers Pay Teachers. When we wrote two books on classroom management (Thriving in the High School Classroomand From Surviving to Thriving: Mastering the Art of the Elementary Classroom), we sat at Linda’s dining room table and wrote as a team—that was an amazing process. Collaboration benefits all those involved in the collaboration process and often benefits students the most.

You can learn new things at any time in your life if you’re willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you. Barbara Sher

There is something about doing or learning something new that is invigorating. Sharing that experience with your students is another way to avoid teacher burnout according to Ben Johnson, in his article: 10 Steps for Avoiding Teacher Burnout. Johnson suggests sharing a new book you are reading with your students or learning about how the brain learns and sharing that. Here are five things to consider connected to doing and/or learning something new.

Go to a large bookstore and browse through their magazines. Choose a magazine you probably would never even look at, let alone buy. Buy it and page through it; look for connections to your own life and/or work.

Read A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink—lots of ideas and suggestions about looking at life differently.

Choose a genre of music with which you have little or no experience. Share some of this music with your students and get their opinions about it.

Try a new recipe every weekend and report back to your students what you tried and whether or not you liked it.

Learn to do magic tricks. Share your magical ability with your students—but no disappearance acts for you or them.

One of the things I did when I was working on a master’s degree in literacy is to share new things I learned about literacy and new learning strategies with my high school students. I would tell my students that I am trying out this new learning strategy with them and after we use it, I want their opinions about how well it worked for them. This was stumbling into magic—students took the new strategy very seriously and then shared their critiques. It was awesome!

I also discovered that students love to learn about their brains and how they learn. There are so many reliable resources online connected to the brain and learning. Recently I pinned an infographic on Movement and Learning that summarizes the benefits of movement in the classroom. As for adding more movement to your classroom, again there are many resources available including brain breaks that are fun and still serve the purpose.

As my colleagues and I create teacher materials for Teachers Pay Teachers, we always include activities that get students up and moving. Check out our store, Surviving to Thriving LjL on Teachers Pay Teachers. Here’s a list of the novels for which we have developed curriculum materials.

How many of you made New Year’s resolutions connected to taking better care of your health? Eat healthier, exercise often, and sleep more! And, yet somehow those resolutions haven’t morphed into new habits. It may be that that we need to strengthen our willpower and it may not be as hard as we think. According to Dr. Kelly McGonigal, “Being mindful of the present moment improves a wide range of skills, including attention, stress management, impulse control, and yes, being self-aware of feelings and urges. Not only does it change how the brain functions, it physically impacts the structure of the brain to support self-control” (Migliore, 2015, p. 33). Being mindful is often associated with meditation and deep breathing exercises, which seem an easy way to increase our resolve, our willpower, to do those things that keep us healthy.

Teacher burnout is caused by many internal and external forces, one of those forces is physical health, which we have some control over. Taking care of your health is Step 2 in avoiding teacher burnout, as suggested in Ben Johnson’s article: 10 Steps for Avoiding Teacher Burnout.

One way to find the time to take care of your health is to have on hand some units you love teaching and students love learning. I always think you should save one of your best units for the end of the spring semester. If you are newer to teaching, you might not have that unit developed yet or if you have been teaching for a while, you might have already taught that unit. Give yourself a break and look at some of the wonderful curriculum materials available online. My colleagues and I work hard to create teacher materials that are easy for teachers to implement and engage students. Check out our store Surviving to Thriving LjL on Teachers Pay Teachers. Here’s a list of the novels for which we have developed curriculum materials. Now go take a nap or a walk!

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. Salman Rushdie

If there’s one American belief I hold above all others, it’s that those who would set themselves up in judgment on matters of what is “right” and what is “best” should be given no rest; that they should have to defend their behavior most stringently.Stephen King

Although there are those who wish to ban my books because I have used language that is painful, I have chosen to use the language that was spoken during the period, for I refuse to whitewash history. The language was painful and life was painful for many African Americans, including my family. I remember the pain. Mildred D. Taylor, The Land

I wonder if those who ban books read those books. I wonder if those who ban books understand that banning a book just makes it that more desirable. I wonder why anyone would think they are the ones who should decide what we read and what we should not read. Sometimes I just wonder.

This week is Banned Book Week. It’s a great topic to discuss with your students, your colleagues, your friends, and your family of readers. If you are wondering what to read next, check out the list of banned books for 2013. Check with your librarian for additional lists of banned books and probably lots of engaging activities that focus on banned books, censorship, and freedom. Check out the ALA Store for products that call attention to banned books.

Reading isn’t passive–I enter the story with the characters, breathe their air, feel their frustrations,
scream at them to stop when they’re
about to do something stupid, cry with
them, laugh with them.
Reading for me, is spending time with a friend.
A book is a friend.
You can never have too many.
― Gary Paulsen

As I was reading yet another book by Victoria Huston, it struck me how much I enjoy her characters, her plots, and her writing. And, how comfortable it is to read a book where you already know the characters and you can depend on a good story written in a style that resonates with your sense of good writing. It’s like being friends with someone you don’t see on a regular basis, but when you do reconnect, you simply pick up where you left off.

I love when I discover a new author and take off on a path to locate every book he or she has written. What’s better than finishing one book and picking up the same characters in the next book! I just downloaded John Sanford’s latest book with Lucas Davenport, a character I have known for a long time. Who is waiting for “W” (Sue Grafton) and finding out what Kinsey Millhone is doing? Jack Reacher is still one of my favorite characters, so reading Lee Child is just a good time.

Then there are those books that are part of a series: Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Lois Lowry’s series, culminating with Son, Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, Lord of the Rings, etc. While I have never been one to reread books (I always feel like there are too many new books to read), I have two sons, now grown men, who would read and reread and reread their favorite series. Now I have an eleven year old granddaughter who loves to reread her favorite books.

My theory is that we read books by the same authors, and sometimes reread those books because there is a feeling of comfort that emerges when we are among those characters, plots, and authors who become part of our reading life. Simply, they are best friends and always available. Who are your favorite authors and characters?

Many of the book we have featured in our Teachers Pay Teachers store are books that have become part of our reading world–whether it is the inspiration found in Wonder and Mockingbird or the adventure in The Hunger Games and Son, these are the type of books that leave an impression on both students and adults.

The best moments in teaching are when students are visibly engaged in an activity and aha moments are filling the air. Anyone without a trained eye may not see the preparation and work that goes into a learning scene like that. They may not even see the teacher, who is probably rotating around the room, answering questions, affirming responses, or just enjoying seeing uncapped potential captured, seeing learning unfolding. My colleagues and I have experienced those moments and attempt to make those moments happen for other teachers and students in the work we do. Some of that work are the lesson plans we create for teachers.

Here’s an opportunity to try out one of our best products for FREE: The Hunger Games Character Analysis Lesson Plan. It’s the perfect lesson to begin on day two or three of your novel unit, after students have read the first three chapters. This FREE lesson plan introduces the characters and provides an activity for character analysis that can be used throughout the reading of The Hunger Games. Included in this FREE lesson plan are a detailed, easy-to-implement, step-by-step lesson plan, four printable student handouts—character analysis activity sheet for Katniss, Peeta, and a character the student chooses to analyze throughout the novel as well as a Cast of Characters Chart. There are reproducible cards to form groups based on character names. This is one lesson that will quickly engage your students. Check out our store for other great lesson plans and classroom activities.